


His Only Escape

by LonelyPanda18420



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anorexia, Bulimia, Depression, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Eating Disorders, Falling In Love, Love, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2017-12-30 11:36:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1018138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LonelyPanda18420/pseuds/LonelyPanda18420
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sherlock starts to experience new feelings, he discovers that he loves John. But there is no way John can find out, otherwise other secrets may me revealed. Johnlock and hinted Mystrade. </p><p>THIS WORK IS CURRENTLY ON HIATUS.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter is just an introduction to the story and Sherlock's thoughts, so it is short. Next chapter should be posted next week sometime.

Sherlock liked the action that his “job” created - in a way, it helped him forget certain things that he couldn’t delete – but he also liked being alone sometimes. There were times that being alone was the only option. He had too many secrets, ones he couldn’t delete, and he was constantly reminded of them while on the move, but when he was sitting or lying down alone and thinking the pain went away.

Although he had been hiding his feelings for John, the blogger has been picking up signals, and has been more suspicious of Sherlock recently. Whenever Sherlock has been sitting staring at John for hours on end while sat in the living room, John has pretended not to notice, but Sherlock knows that sooner or later, one of his secrets will be out. And that hurts him the most.

Sherlock isn’t normally scared of the unknown, so he can’t quite understand why he is so terrified at the prospect of either a more advanced or finished relationship with John. All he knows is that he needs to plan things so that the effects will be minimal. If John is going to find out soon enough, it may as well be on Sherlock’s terms. That way, he would have more control. Yes, that would be good. If John started the conversa-

“Sherlock, you know you’ve been staring at me for that past 3 hours?” John suddenly stated.

This was enough to startle Sherlock out of his thoughts.

“Yes, I am quite aware, and unless you have any objections, I would like to continue.”

John started frowning, looking confused. _Ah shit, he’s going to ask about it. This wasn’t planned._ Sherlock shuffled in his chair, feeling uncomfortable with the situation.

“I think we need to talk about this.” John muttered.

“Talk about what? Looking at you helps me think; in the same way having Anderson in the room distracts me. I so not believe there is anything to _talk_ about.”

John edged forward on his chair, _trying to take authority of the situation,_ Sherlock thought.

“There is clearly something wrong. You are silent more often than not these days, you have been in your room more often, you are physically frail and struggle with even a simple chase, and even though you are eating even more than me, which is unusual in itself, you have still been losing weight. You think that you are the only one who observes things around here, and the only one to have logic, but I have been living with you for long enough to pick things up about you, and my experience as a doctor, including my job at the clinic, has given me a fair few ideas about what’s wrong. Yet I don’t want to assume anything – I want to hear it from you. Tell me what’s wrong, and I will be able to help you.”

_Well shit._


	2. Unusual Behaviour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for waiting this long for this chapter! I will hopefully be posting fairly regularly from now on. Don't worry, I'm not abandoning this story :) In this chapter, we have Sherlock slipping back into some old(?) habits, but also, JOHNLOCK HAPPENS.
> 
> *TRIGGER WARNING: mild drug use*

** Chapter 2 – Unusual Behaviour **

“I’m fine John. No matter how much you think you can understand these things, you can’t. You _see_ but you don’t _observe_.”

With that, Sherlock decided that the best thing would be to walk away from the situation. He stormed off into his room, leaving John sitting in the silence of his departure. Sherlock needed to think about how best to approach the situation, and John wasn’t allowing him to do that. What he needed was for John to give him time and space.

The only problem with avoiding John was that he was constantly on his mind. The only thing that would allow his brain to function was being in the same room as John, or drugs. He preferred the former, but now that John is so keen to interrupt his thinking process, the latter was looking like the only option.

Sherlock jumped up off his bed and ran out his room. While throwing his coat and scarf on, he shouted “I’m going out!” to John, who had most likely retired to his room. A muffled response followed, and with that Sherlock was already on his way downstairs and out the flat.

He managed to hail a cab, and told the cabbie the address. He sat in silence as he thought about what he was about to do. It had been ages since he had seen Dave, never mind buying coke from him. Dave was his high school drug dealer, and the only one whom he hadn’t turned over to Lestrade yet.

After what seemed an eternity, the cab pulled to a stop, and Sherlock passed over the right amount for the fare, and put some more aside for the journey back. He wanted the most he could get with the money he had on him. Luckily he had been to the bank just two days ago which meant that he now had close on three hundred pounds on him.

He walked briskly down the alleyway that led to Dave’s place, trying not to draw attention to himself. When he reached the door, he knocked sharply three times. The door swung open and Sherlock was faced with his one-time bully and old drug dealer.

\---

John had retreated to his room when Sherlock had stormed off, hoping to be able to have some peace and quiet for once. When he heard Sherlock shout saying he was going out, he had already gotten his things together and was about to go for a well needed shower. From his en-suite bathroom he shouted back saying “why would I care?” but realised that Sherlock probably hadn’t heard him when the door slammed two seconds later. John’s shoulders sagged in defeat.

He quickly showered and put on a dressing gown. It was only 9pm, but John decided to go to bed, not wanting to face Sherlock when he got back.

\---

Sherlock arrived back in the flat, coat pockets filled with an array of drugs and needles. He couldn’t hear John, so he took off his coat and went up to John’s bedroom to make sure he was sleeping. After making sure John was in a deep enough sleep not to be woken any time soon, Sherlock went downstairs to his room and took off all his clothes, then decided on plain pyjama bottoms and his blue silky dressing gown to keep himself warm. He grabbed one of the needles from his discarded coat and started getting ready.

Once Sherlock had filled the needle and gotten himself comfy on the sofa, he rolled up his sleeve. Ignoring all the marks that were already scarring his arm, he jammed the needle into a vein, and depressed the plunger. A wave of sweet bliss quickly engulfed him as all his memories of the evening’s troubles evaporated. He hadn’t felt this good in a while.

It wasn’t long till Sherlock could feel himself close to sleep.

\---

John woke after getting about five hours of sleep. As much as he tried to fall asleep again, he couldn’t. He wandered downstairs and found Sherlock asleep on the sofa. Smiling to himself he made a mug of tea, and sat down in his chair.

Sherlock started to wake, and could hear John sipping at a drink of some kind while sitting in his chair. Sherlock rolled over on the sofa so that he was able to hear John better, without alerting John to the fact he was awake. John noted this movement and looked up from the newspaper he was reading. _Beautiful_ , he thought. _I wish I could just let him know how much I liked him._ That’s when an idea ran through John’s head. He walked over to Sherlock and knelt down next to his face.

Sherlock heard John put down the paper, and walk over to him, but nothing could prepare him for what John said next.

“Sherlock, god you’re beautiful. I know you can’t hear me, but I had to tell you, and preferably at a time when you wouldn’t kill me. I love you. I really fucking love you Sherlock, and I wish you would show some kind of sign that you felt the same about me.”

Sherlock was shocked at John’s words. He loved Sherlock? He could feel John’s breath on his face, and knew that he was only centimetres away. Still feeling the effects of the drug, Sherlock did something he never thought he would do. He murmured “How’s this for a sign”, and pressed his lips to John’s. He sat up slightly to be at a better angle and brought his hands up to John’s face, pulling him in for a deep kiss. John quickly pulled away, shocked by what had just happened. “You heard all of that?” John stuttered.

“Every single word. You know how hard relationships and friendships are for me, and I just needed a sign from you that you felt that way about me. You have just given me that, and since you asked for a sign for yourself, I decided to return the favour.”

“Right. Wow, well, I… erm… I don’t really know what to say Sherlock. I just… wow. I never thought that you would, you know, feel the same, you know?”

“You are nervous, are you alright?”

“I just don’t know what to say. I never expected that reaction from you. We do need to talk about this though. We can’t just go from being friends to in a relationship while the whole of the Yard have bets going on whether we are together.”

“How about we just hide it for now? I don’t mind what people think about us, but I will do whatever you feel comfortable with.”

“Thank you Sherlock, I appreciate it you know? You being all, modest and all. It’s unusual.”

With that they shared a hearty laugh. Sherlock invited John onto the sofa with him, and the day was wasted away through a mixture of watching crap TV, cuddling and making out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thank you guys for sticking around for this one. I have a fair few ideas of where I want this to go next (it wont just be a smut-fic). The next chapter should be up soonish (within the next 2 weeks, hopefully) and it should be longer than this one, and much longer than the first one :)
> 
> For anyone who was wanting to know why i didnt post for ages, check out my blog: musicsavedmysanityandlife.tumblr.com. I'm also just going to outline things here: i suffer from depression, anxiety and insomnia. I have slipped deeper over the past few weeks due to changing friendships and the feelings of getting ignored. But now things are starting to look brighter. I managed to patch up the broken friendships, and through that, one of my friends (who i've had a crush on for over a year) confessed her feelings for me. Long story short, I have a girlfriend. So yeah, things are looking better :)


	3. Internal Destruction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this one took so long to get up, ive been dealing with some personal shit and i havent had any motivation to put this chapter up, even though ive had it written for a few weeks. anyway john find out some of sherlocks secrets

** Chapter 3 – Internal Destruction **

Sherlock and John managed to make it back to their own beds that night - they didn’t want to move things too fast. While John got to sleep quickly, Sherlock stayed awake the whole night, struggling with the new emotions he was feeling towards John, on top of coming down from his earlier high. He knew he shouldn’t dose himself up again – what would John think? – but the cravings were there. He knew he couldn’t just ignore it, he needed a case.

Lestrade was the one who helped him with his addiction when he first sought help, mainly because Sherlock couldn’t solve cases if he got himself locked up. Now, whenever Sherlock needs a distraction, he can count on Lestrade to provide _something_ to get his mind off of things.

After much thought, he decided to text Lestrade in the morning. He figured that he wouldn’t appreciate receiving a text at 3:30AM and would be less willing to find any unsolved cases for him. Sherlock decided to go play his violin for the remainder of the night, and to try compose something for John (something easier said than done, as most of the time John doesn’t like Sherlock’s violin playing).

\--

John woke up to the sound of the violin coming from downstairs. As much as he disliked Sherlock playing it in the middle of the night, there was something different this time. He kept stopping and starting, and repeating bits over and over again, but with some variations. John would have thought that Sherlock was playing a piece in theme and variation form, but there were pauses between each part. That makes it seem reasonable to assume that Sherlock was composing. There was nothing unusual in that in itself, but it sounded to be in a major key. The only other times that Sherlock had composed anything, it was always minor. That suggests that Sherlock was happy for once.

John rolled over and looked at the clock on the wall. It was 5AM. Maybe Sherlock wasn’t entirely happy then. Sherlock only really stayed up if he was thinking about a case, or if his insomnia was just playing up.

As a doctor, John was able to notice these things. Sherlock had actually been to his doctor twice for an appointment since John had moved in, and he had been along to the chemist loads more, but never appeared to be picking up anything for personal consumption, but rather for experiments. The thing is, John did find a half-full bottle of anti-depressants the last time he went into Sherlock’s room, so it was reasonable to assume that he suffered from depression, and from his sleep deprivation, insomnia was a good bet too.

John decided to go downstairs and see if Sherlock was alright.

\--

It had only been an hour of playing the violin when Sherlock had almost finished the piece he was composing. He decided to take a break for a few minutes, and wandered into his room. He saw the bottle of pills on his table, and realised he hadn’t taken any in two days. He grabbed the bottle and walked out into the kitchen to get water.

Normally he would be cautious in case John walked in and saw the pills – he wasn’t quite ready to tell John that he was on anti-depressants just yet – but he was upstairs sleeping, so there was no worry there. He ran the tap so that the water was nice and cold while he looked for a clean glass amongst all of the experiments. When he found one, he filled it with water and grabbed the bottle of pills and fiddled around with the top. It had one of those stupid child-proof lids on it. Sherlock normally spent a good five minutes trying to open them, and it took quite a bit of concentration, which is why he didn’t notice John come downstairs.

“The great Sherlock Holmes can’t even open a child-proof seal.” John said after a minute of standing in the doorway. Sherlock jumped and spun around. “Here, let me help you with that.” John offered, and took the bottle out of Sherlock's hands.

“No, I… I can manage.”

“Hey, Sherlock, you don’t need to be nervous or worried about what I might think. I'm a doctor, remember? I kinda already guessed that you were depressed, but hey, who am I to make assumptions? I never mentioned anything in case you got upset by it, but when I saw these in your room, that’s when my suspicions were confirmed.”

John opened the bottle with ease and took one of the small white pills out of the bottle and handed it to Sherlock, who was still frozen to the spot.

“Thank you, John.” Sherlock managed to say after a few seconds. He swallowed it down with the freshly poured glass of water and met John’s eyes again. He could feel the tears starting to form in his own eyes and quickly looked away. “I’m sorry.” He managed to choke out, before walking briskly through to the sitting room and curling up in a ball on the sofa and pulling his dressing gown tightly around him. He could sense John walking out of the kitchen and over next to him. He felt John sit down on the sofa next to his head.

Sherlock opened his eyes after a minute and looked up at John. His vision was blurred due to the tears, but he could see the concern on John’s face. “I'm sorry you have to see me like this, and I'm sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.” Sherlock only just managed to form a coherent sentence before bursting into tears. He felt John’s hand start to gently stroke the curls on his head, and he moved into the touch. He ended up lying with his head on John’s lap, while John continued to stroke his head and comfort him.

Eventually Sherlock fell asleep and John soon followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in the next one, im planning on having them start a case maybe?  
> also, in case youre wondering, im trying to make the chapters at least 1000 words from now one (this was exactly 1000 words) so that they arent too short.


	4. Going on hiatus

Technically, this isnt a chapter 4. i will not be writing any more fanfic for the foreseeable future for multiple reasons. if/when i start writing again, i am likely to start a new work, and leave this as it is.

i do not think i am capable of making any long term commitment to writing due to lack of concentration/motivation and a build up of school work. for those of you who want to know why i am not going to be writing any more, read on. if not, then just keep in mind that i will be coming back to this when i start writing again.

the reasons that i am no longer going to be writing fanfic may present a trigger to some people, so be warned. i suffer from severe chronic depression, anxiety and insomnia. i have been suicidal for almost a year and i have been self harming for over 2 years. i thought that it was getting better when, while writing this fanfic, i got a girlfriend, who helped me a lot. she broke up with me on the last day of term before christmas last year. it has just gone downhill from there. 4 days ago (tuesday 28th) i tried to kill myself. since then, i have decided that i need to focus on my recovery more than anything else. so, for that reason, i am putting writing on hold for now, until i get significantly better.

thanks for reading my work up to this point, and hopefully in the future i will be able to continue writing what i enjoy.


	5. Update

So, I've decided to come back to AO3.  
My mental health is much better, and now I've left school I have a lot of spare time on my hands. I may update this story, but it isn't my first priority. if/when I update it, I will delete this and the previous chapter, and add the new chapter.  
I hope you can all understand,  
-Robbie

**Author's Note:**

> what did you guys think? please bookmark, comment and leave kudos!


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